City police to patrol city through drones

Lokmat News Network

Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar

The police administration is planning to patrol the city through drones. The police will keep a watch over sensitive areas to curb crime incidents. The administration will submit a proposal to the district planning committee to purchase eight drones.

The newly appointed CP Manoj Lohiya has started taking initiatives to make the police department modern. Hence, the plan has been made to purchase drones. The sensitive area, crowded places, agitations, deserted places, and traffic congestion will be monitored through drones. It will help the police to reach the spot in less time and gain control over the situation. He directed the officers to prepare a proposal for virtual patrolling through drones. Under the guidance of DCP Aparna Gitay, ACP Dhananjay Patil and cyber police station PI Praveena Yadav prepared the proposal. It will be submitted to the DPC and the final decision will be taken later on, the sources said.

The proposal included updated technical issues. For patrolling around 4K resolution high megapixel camera drones will be required, It should have the range to cover a distance of over three kilometers. Trained manpower will be required to handle drones. Charging stations will be required at specific places in the city. The proposal is estimated to be around Rs 20 lakh.

Earlier, such an experiment was done in the city in 2018. The administration had purchased four drones. It was planned to throw chili power on the crowd through the drones, but it failed completely. Out of these four drones, one is defunct and its spares are not available in the market.

Kerala is the first state in the country to initiate such an experiment. In Maharashtra, the experiment has been initiated at 12 district jails in the state.